The year 2008 saw Peru’s economy advance strongly. The country reached 9% GDP growth, with significant increases across the board in mining, agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and the entire service sector. Accompanying this growth were high public expenditures (along with increased tax revenues), strong consumer credit growth, and expanding domestic and international investment. Indeed, one notable sign of overall economic well-being emerged during the year when Peru’s debt was moved up to investment grade status by major international brokerage houses such as Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.

Despite these achievements, Pres. Alan García’s approval ratings were at their lowest point since his inauguration in July 2006. They stood at just 19% overall in September, down from 35% in July 2007. Moreover, some deep and significant disparities existed in García’s poll numbers. For example, while he received the approval of 24% of Lima’s population, he registered an abysmal 7% in the southern highlands, Peru’s poorest and most isolated region.

This extraordinary disconnect between robust macroeconomic indicators and popular perception had several causes and as many repercussions. First, while some parts of the country were booming (especially Lima but also the coast in general and the northern coast in particular), many residents of southern and highland Peru, where many of the country’s indigenous peoples lived, continued to see themselves as left out. Government claims that poverty had declined significantly over the past few years fell on deaf ears. Work in the informal sector often provided only part-time employment, poor wages, and no benefits. Many Peruvians, especially in the cities, were also alarmed at the emergence of inflation that—while still relatively moderate—rekindled memories of the late 1980s and its 7,600% hyperinflation. Thus, Peru’s recent economic good fortune remained as much a challenge as a good thing. Maintaining the country’s impressive economic performance while distributing its benefits more equitably was a clear and necessary goal; whether it could be achieved, and how quickly, remained very much in question.

The general discontent felt in many parts of the country contributed to a large number of protests during the year. These included demands by workers in the southern region of Moquegua for the greater sharing of burgeoning mining royalties, numerous clashes between local communities and mining operations over environmental concerns, and a national strike by public-sector doctors over stalled wage increases. The inhabitants of Peru’s central-southern coast around the towns of Pisco and Ica complained that reconstruction following the magnitude-8.0 earthquake that struck in August 2007 had proceeded too slowly. In addition, a variety of institutional shortcomings remained as challenges. For example, plans to decentralize Peru’s unitary government and to devolve power to regional and local levels had been slowly and unevenly implemented and were plagued by claims of unpreparedness and corruption of local authorities.

A major scandal developed in October when high-ranking government officials were accused of partaking in kickback schemes involving oil-exploration contracts. As a result, García’s entire cabinet resigned, and Yehude Simon, a regional governor who was not a member of García’s American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, was named head of a new cabinet. The scandal revelations only damaged García’s public image further.

On the international front, a maritime-boundary dispute with Chile continued to drag on with no resolution in sight, and work on the completion of a highway between Peru and Brazil was running behind schedule. More alarming, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime released a report in June confirming an increase in coca cultivation in Peru as well as in neighbouring Colombia and Bolivia. According to UN and Peruvian government estimates, plots of coca bushes covered some 51,000 ha (127,000 ac) in Peru, an increase of about a third since 1999.

On April 15 the Supreme Court upheld former president Alberto Fujimori’s December 2007 conviction of having once authorized an illegal search. Fujimori’s trial on a variety of other charges, including alleged human rights abuses, continued.

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